When The Battle Is Over
by jeviennis
Summary: Sometimes, even in the wake of victory, the hero needs a friend.


When The Battle Is Over

"Harry?"

The halls of Hogwarts were quiet. From the hall, voices could be heard muttering bittersweet words like 'home', 'summer' and 'over'. Harry didn't want this to be over. Because after 7 years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he knew that what came after was adulthood. And Harry didn't want to be an adult just yet. He'd spent the last 7 years fighting a man who tried to kill him over and over, forcing him to grow up, and just as Harry thought that he might _finally _be able to just be a kid again, he was to mature, to be responsible. It seemed like things had happened rather backwards for Harry Potter.

"Mate, if we don't leave now, we'll miss the train."

Ron stood at the bottom of the grand steps of the Great Hall, watching Harry as he sat halfway up them, head leaning against the wall in defeat. It seemed the world had taken it's toll on Harry, wearied by war and hate, and Ron hated that he couldn't help him. He wanted to grab him by the arm, pull him downstairs, out the front entrance of the castle and down to the lake, where they could just stand and skip stones, talking about quidditch or Harry could explain to Ron – _again _– what the phonebook was, because Ron really didn't have a clue.

But he didn't. He knew Harry wasn't ready for that yet, knew that however much he might have wanted to, Harry couldn't be a kid again yet. Things couldn't magic – _oh, the irony _– back to how they were, and Ron couldn't make Harry lighten up just yet. There would come a point in time, Ron knew, that Harry would run his hands through his hair, absent-mindedly touch his scar and realise that he didn't have to fight for everyone anymore. That he didn't have to save everyone anymore. How could someone have taken that on? Ron's pride and amazement at Harry never faltered, not even when he was angry, because he knew that Harry was a better man – wait, _boy _– than anyone he'd ever known. He was still a boy. Whether he could act it or not, Harry was still a child. And Ron just prayed for the day that Harry realised that and started living like one again. God knows he deserved it.

"Harry? Have you got everything? We need to go."

Hermione almost felt like she had to speak to an elderly person when she spoke to Harry at first. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and even though their victory was magnificent, even though he'd beaten Voldemort, he was still sat, slumped in defeat, in the corner of the hall. Nobody seemed to want to touch him, as if he would break, shatter, crack, _finally_, after everything that had happened. They acted as though a meltdown was inevitable, that him going insane was a perfectly logical next step, because of course, who wouldn't? After all that he'd been through, who wouldn't expect that?

Hermione didn't. She prided herself on being one of the few people who truly knew Harry Potter. Who'd seen him at his highest and who'd seen him at his very, very weakest. What she saw was an impossibly strong young man, with the biggest heart she'd ever known, scarred by fear and marred by tragedy. And so she slapped on her best happy grin, marched over to him with an air of _dammit-Harry-Potter-I-will-do-my-best-to-make-you-happy-because-if-anyone-ever-deserved-it-then-my-god-it-was-you _and sat down next to him, peering into his green eyes and praying that she saw a spark of the old Harry, the Harry that didn't have to keep rescuing people from unimaginable fear. He didn't have that fear anymore. He was free.

Ron walked up to where they were sat – the train could wait, Harry fucking Potter wasn't there yet – and sat on Harry's other side, smiling at Hermione who was looking at him with a look in her eyes that he didn't know existed, like a kind of adoration that made him squirm, but that he never wanted to see go away. Ever. Harry looked up as he plonked himself down with far less grace than Hermione had, and grinned weakly, letting them know that he was fine, that everything was fine.

Harry hated knowing what he'd put them through in the last few years: pain, fear, misery and every synonym in between. And it made him sad. Sad that they didn't have a best friend who could take them out in Hogsmeade without glancing over his shoulder, looking for someone who'd kill him. Sad they didn't have a best friend who could turn up at their house for the holidays and not have it burnt to the ground by Death Eaters. Sad that they had a best friend who had pulled them along with him, making them too old too soon.

"You didn't make us do this, you know."

Harry swore Hermione was a mind reader.

"What?"

"You. You've got that look on your face. That whole, I'm-such-a-bad-person expression that you seem to wear every time you've looked at us properly for the last 12 months or however long it's been."

Hermione really was the smartest witch of her age. Of any age, Harry was sure. Part of him wanted to believe that he could have done this without anyone else's involvement, without other people, but then the rational side of his brain screamed back that if Hermione hadn't been there, he wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes. And Ron too. If Ron hadn't arrived back, fresh and full of embarrassing motivational quotes that he'd clearly picked up in Witch Weekly, he and Hermione would have succumbed to the dark isolation that had threatened to claim them for so long. They'd been struggling, trying to keep their heads above it as it was, but without them, Harry felt sure that he wouldn't have made it at all. He felt, in small way that he didn't think he could ever express, that he owed them his life.

"Oh, right, sorry."

Ron, shook his head, laughing softly to himself. "Don't be sorry, just stop beating yourself up all the time." He gave Harry a playful nudge and a grin that showed just a bit too much teeth to be real. In his eyes, Harry saw the pain of this last year reflected back at him. The wedding, their fight, Ginny's struggles. Fred. He wanted desperately to know that he could make it okay, that he could change something and make the Weasleys whole again, but he knew in the way that Molly smiled and Ginny clung onto his hand every so often that they wouldn't be, ever again. But then, as he saw Ron tilt his head to the side, just a little bit, he could see something underneath, lurking just under the surface.

Love.

And Harry knew that he might not be able to make things okay, and things might not ever be okay again, but he could do his best to love the Weasleys with as much as they had given him over the years; that he could spend the rest of his life trying to pay them back for giving him a home and family, when he never thought that he'd have that. He knew that things might not be perfect completely, but he took comfort in the knowledge that when Hermione got home, she could do something terribly clever that only _Hermione_ would know how to do, and her parents would be back, just like that, as if nothing had ever happened, and she'd be happy again because she had them, and – clearly, if the display earlier was anything to go by – she had Ron, and she'd always have Harry, because a part of him would always belong to her. Being with a person in a tent for a year changes you, Harry thought with a chuckle.

The sun was almost gone, just a reddish-orange haze on the horizon, before Harry swore to himself.

"Well, shit. We've definitely missed the train now."

And at once, the three of them were laughing again, like in the old days, laughing until their sides hurt and Ron's eyes started watering and Hermione started snorting in between laughs, and all three of them knew that even though Hogwarts was over and what was supposed to be their childhood was over, and they had to go into the world as adults and live an adult life, they didn't have to give up that spark of youth that they thought they'd lost so long ago.

They were safe now.


End file.
